‘Microwave’ getting hot at right time
After scoring 11 of her team’s first 17 points against Colorado this month, Jaelyn Brown tried to describe what it feels like when she’s in one of those zones.
Before the Cal reserve guard could complete even a truncated explanation of reading the opposing defense and attacking what seems like a super-size rim, senior Mikayla Cowling jokingly interrupted: “Oh, it’s that easy, huh?”
Brown is making pretty much everything look simple these days, having posted doublefigure points in four of the past six games to provide the Bears a much-needed scoring lift off the bench.
The 6-foot-1 sophomore’s bump in production came just as Cal (18-9, 9-7 in Pac-12) was going through an extended shooting slump and a coinciding skid.
“We were definitely in a slump there, and I am trying to do whatever’s needed on the court,” Brown said this week before the team traveled to the Washington schools for the final week of the regular season. “I want to be a go-to person.
“I want to be able to produce when I come off the bench and give a spark.”
Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb calls Brown the team’s “microwave,” because she can get hot so quickly.
Brown has a smooth jumper and an established pull-up game, but things haven’t always been so easy for her.
She was born with club feet that required reshaping casts and corrective shoes for the first six months of her life and has had a series of near-devastating knee injuries. She has had two surgeries to repair the meniscus in her left knee, but the worst injury came during the summer between her junior and senior years of high school.
She tore the anterior cruciate and medial collateral ligaments in her right knee, her meniscus flipped and she had a compressed cartilage artery. After seven months of grueling rehab, she rushed back to play with her Vista Murrieta-Murrieta teammates in the playoffs.
“I came back way too early. At the time, it seemed right, but I know now that I should have waited,” said Brown, who struggled to find her footing during her freshman season in Berkeley. “I still deal with the mental hurdles now.”
Brown had “confidence” tattooed in script on the inside of her right forearm, a constant reminder that: “Whatever I put my mind to, I can do it.”
Coming off its Saturday win over then-No. 14 Stanford, Cal has a good chance to improve its conference standing (it is currently sixth) against two of the Pac-12’s bottom three teams, Washington State and Washington, this weekend.
Whenever the Bears have a scoring lull, Brown likely will check into the game.
“I’ve accepted my role,” she said. “I see what the defense is doing when I’m sitting on the bench, so when I get in there, I know how to react.”
For Brown, it’s just that easy.